In a previous version of this column, the first name of Elizabeth Gedmark was incorrect. It has been corrected.

When women at XPO Logistics here complained that a supervisor leered at their backsides, rubbed against them and told one woman that he liked to be spanked in bed, they were laughed at.

But no one – at least not anyone in the higher echelons of that company – should be laughing now.

The women who suffered that harassment filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Some recently traveled to Verizon’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Seattle to protest conditions at XPO.

Verizon contracts with XPO to provide transportation and logistics. And Lakeisha Nelson, who has worked at XPO for four years, was in Seattle letting those shareholders know how the company with which they were contracting was stealing their lives and their dignity.

“We’re trying to make a path forward,” Nelson said. “We’re trying to make it better for our girls, and we’re done with just dropping our heads and taking it.”

Verizon officials told Nelson they would investigate the workers’ complaints, leaving them all in a wait-and-see position. Nonetheless, she said, because of #metoo and #timesup – they were joined by activists from those movements – she’s more hopeful their plight will improve.

“Our chances of being heard got three times bigger,” Nelson said. “We have a lot of support…it’s not falling on deaf ears.”

So far, XPO has not responded to the allegations. But the abuse described in the EEO complaint by three women against one supervisor – abuse that was acquiesced by other supervisors – appeared pervasive.

And what it shows is that in far too many spaces in America, women and low-wage workers are viewed as unworthy of dignity and consideration. Some view their status as an opportunity to take advantage instead of uplifting them.

That must change.

“It (stories of harassment and mistreatment) is definitely not unusual, and we hear these stories all the time,” said Elizabeth Gedmark, senior staff attorney for A Better Balance – a Nashville-based organization that advocates for women’s workplace issues.

“It’s just that in recent years, employers have felt more emboldened to get away with this, especially with low-wage workers, because they’re workers with no bargaining power.”

Among other things, the XPO supervisor in the EEOC complaint is accused of commenting, when a woman bent over, about what he’d like to do to her in that position. He is also accused of haranguing two of them for dates and retaliating with derogatory language and other intimidation after they refused.

Then there were the inflexible hours, a building that overheats in the summer and leaks on them when it rains, and rigid rules – rules which some say led bosses to bar them from assisting a 58-year-old coworker, Linda Jo Neal, when she collapsed on the job last October. Neal died of a heart attack.

“When Miss Linda took her last breath on the on that floor, it did something to me,” said Nelson, who is working with the Teamsters to organize workers there. “It made me realize that could be me on that floor, in this building …

“This [XPO Logistics conditions] is not just Memphis. It’s worldwide. And that makes me want to fight even more.”

Already, XPO is listening – they’ve begun to replace the roof on the facility, Nelson said. And while change may be coming too late for Neal, it may be right on time for others.

“We just want to be treated like human beings. That’s all,” Nelson said.

And for those who would persist in treating them as less than human, well, guess what?